1
Springboks return to top of world rankings
By Jon Newcombe
South Africa have moved back to the top of the world rankings after extending their winning run against Scotland to nine matches with a 32-15 victory at Murrayfield in the final Autumn Nations Series fixture of the weekend.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Springboks had spent six weeks in second place after losing to Argentina in the penultimate round of The Rugby Championship, but Friday night’s defeat for Ireland at home to the All Blacks combined with the result in Edinburgh has restored them to number one.
Rassie Erasmus’ side are now on 92.46 points, with the All Blacks moving up to second on 91.22 points, while Ireland drop down to third on 90.58.
Fourth-placed France are the only team in the top 10 to remain unmoved, having not received any points for their straightforward 52-12 win over Japan at the Stade de France on Saturday evening.
On a wholly positive weekend for the southern hemisphere, Australia and Fiji joined South Africa and New Zealand in climbing the rankings, while Argentina were also rewarded for beating Italy 50-18.
The Wallabies started the weekend four places worse off than England but the gap is now down to one after their dramatic 42-37 win at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham. Now ranked seventh, England are the lowest they have been for over eight years, while Australia are up to eighth.
In another nail-biter, Fiji beat Wales for only the second time in history and have moved up to ninth. Wales, who are now on a record-equalling run of 10 straight defeats, stay 11th but are less than a point ahead of Georgia.
ADVERTISEMENT
Watch the highly acclaimed five-part documentary Chasing the Sun 2, chronicling the journey of the Springboks as they strive to successfully defend the Rugby World Cup, free on RugbyPass TV (*unavailable in Africa)
The results just proves that the Rugby Championship is far superior to the Six nations....spoiler alert....sorry Ireland
It’s only one weekend of rugby and everyone’s having a meltdown between SH and NH . The Irish played badly and lost . So what . Even the best AB teams would lose a game . Let’s see how the NH teams perform for the rest of the AI and 6 nations before sharpening the knives .
91 comments on this... what's there to debate?! 😂
Unsurprisingly WR were able able to produce another SA Man of the Match winner in Christophe Ridley. Seems to be a direct replacement for the retired Wayne Barnes. The laughable yellow turned red card early in the game was just embarrassing but sadly the norm.
... and the broken record keeps spinning ...
The below comments from our SH friends are bordering on lets say...bizarre.
I predict all of a sudden that the issues with the points system will disappear overnight.
As usual it doesn't take much for the SH boast-athon to start.
The KEY result for anyone with any knowledge of the points system was Australias win over England. Anybody in SH understand why? (I doubt it)
Cry me a river RW, your arrogant Greenshirts got beat fair and square. First you bring out the excuses, weather and rustiness. LOL. Now the rankings, which had you at No 1 because SA lost to an improving Argentina side, aren't fair. Boo hoo, hope you enjoyed your time at No 1 because the only direction you're heading now is down!
Boks 1 obviously right my ABs at 2 tho well can’t really agree with that till we play France and they got us last 2 times so if we win will take it if we lose then they are
You can take it. The AB's is rising again. Next year this time they will be a scary prospect like the Boks. The ranking system is BS. It needs replacing, but first WR staff needs to change hands from the NH to the SH. They always clearly favour the North and try and make the games suit them. That way they try and break SH rugby. Instead of promoting the game and fix all the in-house problems, they add more problems by changing rules and adding more rules as if the refs doesn't have enough to remember already. That affects how they blow games and they get as confused as the players about the rules and then blow like crap and get copper for it by fans and the media and teams. Not WR as it should be them held responsible for it
Keeping a Northern Hemisphere nation from #1 ranking is the only plus for me lol. Other than that, whatever.
Lol it's funny how we are closing down ranks in the South when our nation's is playing the North. It's as if we are one big country(unless we play each other of course, then it's war). Then we support all the SH teams against the NH teams, no matter where you are from. Then we are all Boks or AB's etc. closing ranks.